Book Review: About that Night by Julie James

At First Sight: Fresh out of her first year of Law School, Rylann Pierce was celebrating with her friends in a college bar when she met Kyle Rhodes - who was out celebrating that he had been accepted into a doctoral program and who also happened to be the son of a billionaire- and he offered to walk her home.

One mind-blowing kiss later, Rylann agrees to go on a date with him the following night... only that he never shows up, Rylann indirectly finds out why and she moves on without ever expecting to run into him again.

Nine years later, Rylann has become an Assistant US Attorney (AUSA) in San Francisco and following her break-up with her long time boyfriend Jon - who decided that he suddenly just HAD TO move to Italy - Rylann decides to move Chicago and unexpectedly runs into Kyle... in the courtroom.

A few months before, after his then girlfriend broke up with him via Twitter and later posted a video of her practically having sex with someone else, Kyle Rhodes got a little drunk and had the brilliant idea to shut down Twitter for two whole days, and since he's a computer geek and and a network security expert this was no problem for him whatsoever.

Until he sobered up and realized it was time to own up to what he had done. He pleaded guilty and was in jail, but then his sister Jordan reached an agreement with the FBI and US Attorney's office and he was released. Going to the courtroom that day was a mere formality and Kyle was expecting to see his nemesis Cade Morgan in the prosecution side of the room but instead Rylann walked in. 

Second Glance: About That Night is the third book in the FBI-US Attorney series by Julie James but you don't really need to have read the previous books Something About You and A Lot Like Love to understand this one - though Kyle does start showing up in A Lot Like Love since that's his sister Jordan's story.

Anyway, About that Night is a pretty charming story. I liked Rylann okay and I really liked Kyle - I mean, sure what he did with Twitter was pretty dumb but he owns up to it and takes the repercussions, so that's definitely a plus for him.

They actually have a nice chemistry going on that has endured a lot of time and a lot of distance and other relationships, and that was sweet. I like Rylann and Kyle together but I also felt like their relationship totally lacked conflict.

I mean, Rylann thinks is a bad career move to date him - since she's a prosecutor and he's an ex-con and witness in one of her cases - and maybe it is but it's not the end of the world, really. And Kyle well, he hasn't forgotten her after nine year of not seeing her, he's wasn't planning on jumping into a relationship after the way the last one ended, but he's pretty on-board with exploring a relationship with Rylann from the start.

So, see, no real conflict here.

That being said. It was a good story, I think Julie James is one of the best contemporary authors out there right now, the lack of tension makes for an easy to put down read but it was fun and kind of fluffy and I liked reading about all the lawyery stuff (I like that Ms James's lawyers actually do lawyery stuff).

Bottom Line: In TV terms, it was an average pisode of a really good procedural show leaning a bit on the Ally McBeal side of procedurals rather than, say, The Practice or The Good Wife. If you're in the mood for a easy to read, well written book with good characters, go for it. 

1/2